Chapter 7—Simon #4
Christa walks to the chair behind her desk but doesn’t sit. She puts one hand on the back as though she intended to move it, then seems to forget why. “Charla and Tate.”
“Yes.”
“My Charla.”
The question is almost absurd, but I understand it. “Yes.”
She stares at a spot somewhere past my shoulder.
I want to go to her but stay where I am.
Christa swallows. “How long?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
A short laugh leaves her, stripped of humor. “Of course she wouldn’t.”
I wait.
She turns away from me and walks to the window. Outside the glass, two employees move through the workroom carrying a padded panel between them. Christa watches them for a moment as if whatever they’re doing deserves her complete attention.
When she turns back, she’s past the first round of shock. “How did you find out?”
“Walter Grayson wanted to show me photographs of golf-course drainage.”
Christa blinks.
“I realize that’s not the part you expected.”
“No.” Her voice is faint. “It wasn’t.”
I give her the story from the beginning. Walter identifying Charla as Christa. I knew immediately she wasn’t.
Christa lowers herself into the chair sometime during the explanation.
I tell her I walked over and called Charla by her actual name. I describe the confusion from the couple standing beside them and Tate’s glare.
“He knew you knew,” Christa says.
“Immediately.”
She looks down at the desktop.
“Charla covered by claiming I’d mistaken you for her,” I continue. “She joked that Charla considers herself the prettier twin.”
Christa closes her eyes.
I stop.
After a few seconds, she opens them again. “That sounds like her.” There’s no affection in the words.
“She played it, and you let her without calling it out?” She sounds confused, not angry.
“Once I saw Tate’s reaction, I wanted to know why.”
Christa nods slowly. She’s following the logic even while I can see the rest of it trying to catch up with her.
“I don’t know much about why they’re doing this, but it has something to do with the trust.” I take a breath. “The pregnancy.”
Christa looks at me sharply. “Pregnancy?”
I pull the guest chair away from her desk and sit because standing over her suddenly seems wrong. “Charla is eleven weeks pregnant.”
All color leaves Christa’s face.
I lean forward. “Christa.”
She lifts one hand. “I’m okay.”
She isn’t, but I respect the attempt as she stares at me with stricken eyes. “Tate’s?”
“He believes the baby is his.”
Her expression changes. “Believes?”
I shrug. “Charla reacted strangely when I asked.”
“How?”
“Too defensive. She insisted the baby is his son before I’d questioned whether it was.” I keep my voice calm. “I may be reading more into that than is there.”
Christa looks toward the window again, then back at me. “She’s pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“Eleven weeks.”
“Yes.”
“You said son?” When I nod, she says, “She must have had NIPT testing.”
I don’t know what that is, so I reach for her hand as she does the math without saying it.
I can tell exactly when she reaches whatever date matters. Her lips part.
“Christa?”
She looks at me, and the hurt on her face becomes something sharper. “That was before I hired Jai.”
I say nothing.
“Before I told Charla I was thinking about leaving.” Christa grips the edge of the desk. “She wasn’t sleeping with him because I was already leaving.”
“No.”
The word comes quietly.
Christa looks down.
I hate Charla more in that moment than I have ever disliked another human being for something done to someone else.
Christa takes a slow breath. “You said people thought she was me.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Walter. The couple with Tate. Everyone who approached them while I stayed to watch.”
Her brow furrows. “Everyone?”
“As far as I could tell. They want to believe, of course. Walter said the next male Meade heir changes the voting arrangement. Bernard thinks your baby is the answer to their prayers.”
“My baby.” She shakes her head.
“That’s what they believe.”
She rises so abruptly the chair rolls backward and bumps the credenza.
I stand too.
Christa walks several steps away, then turns. “They think I’m pregnant?”
“Yes.”
Her face is unreadable now. “With Tate’s son.”
“Yes.”
She lets out a laugh that sounds nothing like amusement. “I spent Saturday night at that dinner while Judith discussed my fertility in front of everyone.”
I remember what she told me yesterday. “I know.”
“Tate sat there.”
“Yes.”
“He sat there and let them talk about how I couldn’t give him a child while my sister was already pregnant.” She scowls. “He probably told them hormones made me irrational and paraded Charla there to reassure them the divorce was a misunderstanding.”
I don’t have an answer that helps but nod. It’s a sound theory.
Christa starts pacing, then stops beside the bookcase. “The thirty days.”
“That’s what I thought too.”
She turns toward me. “Charla knows about that?”
“She reacted when I mentioned it. She claims she doesn’t know the legal details.”
Christa scoffs. “She knows something.”
“I agree.”
For a moment, the office is silent except for distant movement. Then she straightens her shoulders, clearly ready to do battle.